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Hillary’s Iowa Problem

By Chris Suellentrop June 5, 2007 5:34 pmJune 5, 2007 5:34 pm

Is Iowa a more sexist place than the rest of America? Linda Lantor Fandel, the deputy editorial page editor of The Des Moines Register, fears that it is, and that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is suffering because of it.

A Des Moines Register poll conducted in January “found that only 55 percent of Iowans think the country is open to choosing a woman as president,” she notes. (Polls that ask what your neighbor thinks are considered a more reliable indicator of prejudice than a direct question, because people are presumed to be reluctant to confess their own chauvinism.)

In the May 20 Des Moines Register poll of likely caucus-goers, Clinton places third in Iowa, after John Edwards and Barack Obama. “Maybe Clinton’s standing here has nothing to do with sexism,” she writes. “But maybe it does. After all, what does explain why Iowa has never elected a woman governor, why Iowa has never sent a woman to Congress, or how Clinton is faring? In interviews with women in the Iowa Legislature for an essay I wrote earlier this year, many had run into outright gender discrimination in their campaigns.”

She concludes, “[M]y gut feeling, based on living in Iowa more than 20 years, is that there’s a lingering prejudice that women should not stake out too high a profile.”

On the other hand, too much can be made of a state’s historic prejudices. After all, no woman had won a statewide election in New York before Hillary Clinton’s victory in her 2000 Senate race.
— Chris Suellentrop

Iowa has one of the oldest, if not the oldest, population of any state in United States, and nearly all those seniors are lifelong or nearly lifelong residents of the state. Iowa also has a relatively rural population. In light of that, I’d venture that the likelihood that we are NOT more reserved about the suitability of having a woman president is vanishly small.

I hail from Illinois, the midwest. I work on the West Coast for an East Coast company. Those of us on the West Coast are certain in our DNA that the East Coast may as well be another country. The East Coasters just don’t get it. They don’t see the differences. I mention this because I am certain that Iowa is not New York and because it is simultaneously the best place to get a pulse on the traditional vote and the worst place to fathom the coasts. Hillary is beyond presidential but those folks in the corn belt will purposefully ignore it.

I think that you make too much of the Man/Woman issue. I am a liberal Democrat and here is my case against Hillary in a nutshell: From the Washington Post,””For the past four years, the Clintons have jetted around on Vinod Gupta’s corporate plane, to Switzerland, Hawaii, Jamaica, Mexico —
$900,000 worth of travel. The former president secured a $3.3 million consulting deal with Gupta’s technology firm. His presidential library got a six-figure gift, too.– ”
And from CNN’s Lou Dobbs archives, “SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am reaffirming my
commitment to the H1-B visa and increasing the current cap. So let’s just face the fact that foreign skilled workers contribute greatly to what we have to do in being innovators. ”

Already 50% of all computer science engineers working the USA are on H-1B visas, and Hillary, the recipient of huge amounts of money from IT CEOs favors doubleing the number of visa for workers from low wage countries. We will completely lose the industry she says now depends on Indian and Chinese “innovators” within five years, but she will be president then, and indifferent to the middle class; she gets her money now.

William Jefferson Clinton is an enormous conundrum. I do not, under any circumstance, want him sleeping with the President of the United States. Her fitness to rule is res ipsa loquitur suspect by her having chosen to remain married to him. His was an exemplary presidency in many respects, and although I am a liberal’s liberal, “Bill” is a sonless gelding and I don’t want two in a row with 24 hour access to the people who wield armies.

I don’t understand where the data is coming from that Hillary will win in any state…I can’t find anyone that actually wants to vote for her. I’ve discussed this with friends in Maryland, New Jersey, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, New York, and North Carolina. We are all generally NOW Democrats – a few are such by default – former republicans or independents. We can’t stand what the Bush administration has been up to and are unhappy with the “progress” of the new congress (whatever happened to having courage of your convictions?). None of us were particularly disturbed by Bill’s Monica problem. Our incomes vary, and most, but not all of us, went to college. Our ages range from 40 to 85. The reasons for our lack of enthusiasm about Hilary ranges from the poorest reason, just not liking her, to the simple- not another Clinton – meaning the idea that the country can only be run by a handful of rich and famous families seems terribly short sighted and somehow wrong. Putting emotion aside, we are split on whether we think she will be a good president. All of us fear that if she wins the nomination she will lose the election. That is going to be her real problem.

I think Hillary will have a tough time getting votes in Missouri, Kansas and maybe even Arkansas as well as Iowa. Small states that don’t have a lot of electoral votes, but throw in a few southern states too and she’s in trouble. Missouri and Kansas are very ‘traditional': a man and a woman marriage, no abortions, gays should go for counseling, the Bible should be taken literally and so on. It goes without saying that these hidebound mores include a man as the head of the family and the country.

Martha, interesting that you say that because I support Hillary Clinton, as well as many of my friends in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Illinois, and California. Granted, many are professional women but she does have many loyal supporters. As for Iowa, I think too much weight is given to Iowa’s vote. Given that many other states are moving up its primaries, Iowa will no longer be significant. Hillary can lose Iowa but she will take NH, SC, Nevada, NY, CA, NJ, PA and up and down the coasts. That will be good enough for her to get the Democratic nomination.

Hailing from Iowa, and having lived part-time in Iowa and NYC at the end of the Clinton presidency and the election of Bush, I am increasingly convinced east-coasters just don’t get it. I vote left, think left, read left, listen left and I see little chance Hillary could win. I am not going to vote for her but will, reluctantly, (holding my nose) if she is the Democratic candidate. My fellow Iowans will not do the same. They will be convinced by a slick Mit Romney or another Republican campaign that they have their best interest at heart and not struggle to pull the lever for her. Out here it is not because she is a woman, it is becase she is a Clinton, and even if we long for the days of that presidency there is no way we can vote to get another four years of the devisive dynamic we have been suffocating from for the last 16 years. She represents more of the same. This is her problem, not her sex. I am sorry for her because this is not her time.

Rural Iowa is rooted in stereotypical gender views. When I moved to Iowa from the west coast in the mid-1990’s and enrolled my children in school, there was no space in the school forms for mother’s occupation, only for the father’s. And, in my job as as assistant county attorney, I was surprised to be introduced to a new deputy sheriff as “the little lady.” Times were (and are) changing, but if I had never lived in Iowa, I never would have believed the 1950’s were alive and well. (Ask me about the unexcused absence my son received for Yom Kippur and the threatened legal action it took to change it, and the school principal who told a young African-American man to leave a high school football game because he was “scaring the children.”) Candidates — come to California for some retail politics — we have living rooms, too.

The overwhelming majority of negative comments I hear about Clinton come from women. Suspect they see her a threat to marital stability.

Clinton does much better among young males I suspect because so many were raised by single mothers with fathers pretty much out the picture. This could be first election determined by unresolved Oedipal issues.

She’ll have big time problems with older male voters for whom she brings to mind the difficult former or current wife.

Terri Arnold (#10)–Have a very different impression of Iowans since I started coming here in 2006 to campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.

Although Jewish, found the fundamentalist Christians welcoming and supportive. People are here generally quite friendly.

That said outside the main population centers it would be hard for Jews with a traditional outlook to feel they fit in. In Des Moines there’s a active Jewish community and even a Chabad House. The Chabad rabbi runs a glatt kosher deli and restaurant serving genuine “Ratner” level cornbeef and pasterami sandwiches.

Do have my Jewish issues here. Asked the Iowa GOP, assuming they let on the Ames Straw Poll on Saturday, August 11, to allow shomer mitzvot supporters to vote absentee. They could deliver several hundred very critical votes. My request has gotten some bent out of shape.

New Yorkers oppressed by the cost of housing, etc, really should check Iowa out. Housing and food costs are really reasonable. West Des Moines where I rented a home for the Iowa campaign is a wonderful community close to all the freeways with excellent shopping. Small towns near Des Moines like Winterset, John Wayne’s childhood home, are quintessential heartland communities.

The downside to Iowa is the weather. You ain’t done winter until you’ve experienced Iowa’s.

Expressing strongly-felt opinions is wonderful for the ego, but let’s have a look at the facts.

According to the latest Intrade data (based on actions of people who bet real money on political outcomes), Hillary is the odds-on favorite to win the Democratic nomination and the Democratic party is the odds-on favorite to win the Presidency, Senate and House of Representative.

So, all of us, including Hillary bashers should get used to thinking and saying: “President Hillary Clinton.”

The early packing of primaries on February 5th will tend to diminish the importance of both Iowa and New Hampshire. There may also not be time for a consensus to develop. That could result in a deadlocked convention and then anything goes. AS for Hillary, she has money for advertising for a big February push, but so does Obama. It should prove to be interesting times.